Final Details and Complete Candidate Statistics for Elections in Two Iraqi Provinces
According to the English section of webangah news Agency, citing Iraqi WAA news agency via Mehr News Agency, the office of Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission announced final details and extensive statistics on candidates for the forthcoming Iraqi Council of Representatives elections in two key provinces: Karbala and Nineveh.
As the parliamentary elections approach on November 11, officials from the Independent High Electoral Commission in Nineveh reported intense competition among more than 1,000 candidates vying for 34 seats across 36 electoral lists. In Karbala, 223 candidates are competing for 11 seats.
The commission’s office in nineveh disclosed on Monday that a successful technical simulation exercise had been conducted ahead of election day and confirmed that over 300,000 biometric cards have been distributed so far.
Sufyan Al-Mashhdani,media officer at the commission’s office,stated that preparations included simulation operations to test electronic voting machines and raise awareness among polling staff,coordinators,and employees. This process also involved transmitting data to test package capacity under election conditions. The province of Nineveh constitutes a single electoral district with 873 polling centers divided into a total of 3,861 voting stations spread throughout the province.
He added that after candidate approval procedures were completed, there are now 1,048 confirmed candidates out of an initial pool of 1,067, representing 36 electoral lists competing for 34 seats. Notably, among these candidates are 282 women. The commission will use 873 schools as polling stations, while currently 140 registration centers operate across the province.
Meanwhile, Rizaq Al-Asadi-head of media and government communications at the commission-provided an update regarding Karbala’s parliamentary election race: a total of 223 candidates (149 men and 84 women) will compete for its allocated 11 seats. The eligible voter population stands at approximately 666,065,including around 44,740 special voters,primarily security forces personnel; and about 634,816 general voters.
Al-Asadi noted that this provincial contest features competition from 13 electoral lists, comprising five political parties and seven coalitions alongside one independent candidate. There are currently 249 general polling centers with 1,243 voting branches, and also sixteen special polling centers covering 104 branches. Voter registration data has been updated at a rate reaching approximately 96 percent in Karbala-signaling strong potential participation in these elections.
The official further clarified that roughly 671,833 biometric cards have been issued within Karbala; out of which 587737 have already been distributed while about 84087 remain pending delivery to registered voters. As operations began there have been approximately 112 documented incidents related to election violations or irregularities recorded by local offices; though none have led to disqualification proceedings against any candidate.
